I have a lot of things to say about this, so let's get some things out of the way first.
I was never a huge fan of the original Demon Slayer manga. I've always found that my tastes are pretty generic when it comes to action shounen but ever since I started reading it back in 2016 I always found that it was missing something that would bring it up to the same level as its competitors. After dropping and resuming it a few times I finally made it to the end when the series concluded and found myself underwhelmed all the way through, unlike the anime which has blown me away time and time again.
These side stories, on the other hand, made me feel some of the same things I felt while I was watching the anime. The way that the panels flow and the framing of the characters was near perfect in every way imaginable. Had the entire 200+ chapters of the original been composed and drawn in the same manner I probably would have liked it a lot more.
The Tomioka/Shinobu side story was enjoyable. In the original you can basically take their characters at face value, with the only backstory being that "they are this way because someone close to them died" just like everyone else in the series. Maybe I'm just biased or maybe it was the art but they felt more like actual humans in these 2 chapters instead of just the flat characters they are in the original. Side characters were nice, interactions were nice and even though it played with a lot of the same concepts as the original it still utilized them in a more effective way that actually made me feel some emotional connections to what was happening.
The Rengoku/Kanroji side story is what I feel the strongest about and was what mainly prompted me to come here and leave this review. I honestly believe that these 2 chapters accomplished more in terms of defining and constructing Rengoku as a character than the entire 15 chapter arc/movie that was dedicated to him. Not only do we get to see the origin story of how the two became hashiras, but the main fight between Rengoku and Hairou (Lower moon 2) was much more well composed than its counterpart, Rengoku vs Akaza. We also get a glimpse at Rengoku's father in action, I can't really remember if we get to see that in the original or not other than how he feels after learning his son is dead but I think the connection between Hairou and the Rengoku family is neat.
When I compared the two fights side by side, I was definitely more drawn to the Hairou fight as I found the art was, well, better. But looking at it from a more objective point of view you can see that the panel composition and overall progression of the fight is much more effective in building up to a climactic moment. Especially considering that they use the same finishing move in both fights and many of the panels are almost identical in terms of framing, the Hairou fight just seems to more effectively build tension between the two characters leading to this big finishing move that takes up an entire page. Big panels or entire pages of a single subject, like a characters face or a pose after an attack, really drive home what the reader should see as an important moment and this side story just does that so much better than the original does. Oh also Kanroji got to do some stuff so that was cool too.
I think that should about sum up all the important bits I want to get at, maybe I'll make a video or something if anything else comes to mind.
